


Works of progress, and other bad ideas.

by Reavv



Series: Changelings [1]
Category: Addams Family - All Media Types, Bleach, Final Fantasy VII, Katekyou Hitman Reborn!, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Ficlet Collection, Ghosts, Multi, Remix, Supernatural Elements, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-08
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2018-10-16 12:29:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 11,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10571340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reavv/pseuds/Reavv
Summary: Current WIPs that I wont have time to write for until school is over.[EDIT] School is done but now I work





	1. Changeling Mother

**Author's Note:**

> These will eventually get their own fics when I have enough

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A remix of Changeling Child where it's Nana who is the strange spirit and not Tsuna

Tsuna’s mother is magic. This is a fact he knows with certainty: has known for as long as he can remember his own name. 

Tsuna’s mother is magic because late at night when the streets are quiet she’ll sing a quiet song and the neighbourhood cats will show up, silent and grave as they watch her from the back window of the house. Tsuna can’t make his voice do the things she can; can’t get the right sort of growl or the almost-unheard warble that echoes just under her words. 

When she cooks the oven starts itself; all her dishes are perfectly made and heated at just the right temperature. They always have tea in the house, made in little tin cans without any writing on them, and when Tsuna is sick she always knows which one will make him feel better. Their garden, lush and overgrown no matter the season, holds a bounty of odd produce. Herbs and spices that shouldn’t grow in Japan’s climate, strange-looking flowers and a whole patch dedicated towards thistle. 

She sews little bags, odd, lumpy packages that Tsuna takes to school for good luck. They keep the bullies away, and when his attention is particularly bad, they shake him out of his daydreams and thoughts. Sometimes if things are going poorly, a bad grade or a hostile teacher, she’ll make him something bigger. Wooden dolls that only he can see, standing sentinel over the doorways of the classroom. 

So Tsuna’s mother is magic. A secret, she says with a smile. Something that one day Tsuna will also be able to learn, although not to the same extent. He’s too grounded, and yet not rooted deeply enough (too much like his father, she says only once). Tsuna doesn’t understand, but he’s content enough to watch her weave her spells and whisper to shadows he can only barely see. 

It makes life interesting, even if he doesn’t really realise how odd it is until he’s in junior high. When he’s small it’s just a fact of life, something that he considers normal if at times a little strange. And as he grows, and his own powers develop more and more, he starts to understand it a little more. In the evenings he sits by his mother’s side and watches her hands as they weave magic into being, infused into everyday objects. He listens to her stories, of kami and oni and everything in between. Of which spirits it’s safe for him to talk to, and which ones he should call her for. 

When he’s nine, big enough to cup a small flame of magic in his own hand, she gives him his own familiar. The wooden fox toy is well-worn: smooth and warm to the touch. It feels nothing like the glass necklace she wears, that he knows holds something much larger and more powerful than he’ll ever be able to hold. But it’s powerful in it’s own right. 

With it in hand he doesn’t need any friends. Where he goes there’s a constant shadow following him, nipping at his heels. The feeling of warm fur against his sides. Of bright blue flame chasing away the darkness. 

His teachers complain about his supposed airheadedness. The way he sometimes talks to people who aren’t there. The hundred-and-one ways that they can feel he’s not the same as them. When he comes home with teacher’s note after teacher’s note his mother only smiles. He’s just not quite as good at hiding as she is yet.

—

Nana becomes human so she can get away from her overbearing family. Always yapping in her ear about duty, of siring a new heir so the line can prosper. Her mother finds her a boring but powerful mate from another clan and when Nana hears about the match she can’t help but laugh. She would marry a human before she would marry a match like that. 

So she does. She finds a human with an enticing scent; latent magic and yokai blood long-diluted, and changes herself to be just what he wants. He’s so easy for it, and doesn’t even ask why she doesn’t have any records, any history. He’s gone for long stretches of time, lies horribly about his job, and is too caught up in his own drama to notice the pearls she lines the house with. 

When she becomes bloated and swollen with the eventual pregnancy, magic agitated at even the thought of the life she carries, he turns out to be a doting if useless husband. His interest in the child is genuine, at least, even if she can tell there’s some underlying tension there. And if possible, he becomes even more distant after she gives birth. As if afraid of what he’ll bring back into their embrace. 

It’s odd, but convenient for her. She lets Iemitsu name him in the human fashion, but late at night when her husband is gone she cradles the babe close and whispers his true lineage into his young ear. He might not understand it now, but someday she wants him to know all that the world has to offer. 

After all, she ran away from home not out of a fear of children or marriage, but because she could never let herself be chained to their limited point of view. And neither shall her son be. She was a bad priest: too adventurous, too rowdy. But she’s a good fox, and she’ll make sure he is too. 

And then he turns five and Iemitsu shows up for once. He bring with him an old man, brimming with power, and Nana has experienced enough legends to know how this will end. She dresses Tsuna up in her old jinbei, decorated with flying cranes and bamboo in the inside and a pure white on the outside, and then distracts the two men for as long as it takes for him to wander into the garden and out of sight. He’s a shy boy, sensitive and gentle. The rolling fire under the old man’s skin would be a terrible thing to subject him to.

She can tell there’s something more going on, that there’s an interest there that she doesn’t quite understand. There’s a tense moment when a neighbourhood dog wanders close by: the barking sends both her and Tsuna to jumping, but the small canine is far from the powerful protectors she’s used to running from. It can’t get into the yard, and wanders away soon after. 

She watches Tsuna peek out from the hedge he was hiding in and makes a mental note to talk to him about how to deal with a dog’s nose. Iemitsu and the old man seem to think the dog should have done more. More than once they ask if Tsuna is alright. Nana smiles with all her teeth bared and explains it away as a fear of dogs. Not that far from the truth, and more to the point, it distracts the old man’s gaze from Tsuna and his gold eyes. 

No doubt he has some plans for Tsuna and his power, but that doesn’t matter. Here in her house, surrounded by her power, the man with the orange Flames is a powerless as a rat under her paws. 

—

Tsuna grows up, and although he might not be the most powerful of her children (or the brightest, or the bravest) he has so much potential he practically burns with it. And so sweet, so gentle. He's the sort of human those folk tales are about, someone pure and kind enough to bewitch even the most hardened of yokai.

He's very precious to her, and for maybe the first time she laments the short life spans of humans. It makes them interesting and exciting, but the brightest flames burn the fastest. It would be a waste for something as pure as her son to leave the world so soon; to fall into the pit that is rebirth and become anything from an ant to a bird to another son under someone else’s embrace. That’s why she tries to teach him as much as she can, with the limited power he currently holds. The more his soul is used the more he’ll remember in the next life, and the more she feels comfortable letting him go. 

The day she gives him his first familiar, a simple object spirit that she found in a dusty antique shop, is also the day she steps up his training. He’s young enough that he doesn’t really see it as that, of course, and she makes sure to do it in ways that are fun and engaging. These are techniques she hasn't had to do in decades, small, useless little tricks that nonetheless require a certain amount of attention and dedication. It’s gratifying to see how Tsuna takes to them.

“That’s good, a little less pressure,” she says with a smile, watching the foxfire flicker. Tsuna’s adorable expression of concentration deepens, and she has to hide a laugh in her sleeve at the sight. 

“Mama,” Tsuna says, once he’s got the lights burning evenly, “there’s a spirit at school I think is up to no good.” 

Nana hums, mind going over all the current spirits she knows in that region. The school has always been a relatively dead zone spiritually though, considering it’s guardian. 

“What kind of spirit, Tsu-kun?” 

Tsuna frowns, before shrugging a little. The lights flicker and he jerks back into position. 

“I think it’s haunting the baseball field, but I can only see a vague outline. It doesn’t feel bad, but I’m not sure.” 

Nana thinks about that as her son goes back to trying to juggle the lights without changing their shape. It sounds if anything like a ghost. Whether that’s a malicious one or not, she’ll only be able to tell by seeing it. 

“We’ll, why don’t I pick you up tomorrow and we can check it out together?” She finally says.

“Sure!” Tsuna beams, looking as excited as ever to have her company.


	2. Weather Gods

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crack treated not seriously. Will have as many tropes as I feel like stuffing into it. Probably be NSFW

Cloud sees the man half the way up to the mountain, climbing down from the pass to the mansion. He's carrying an unconscious man in one hand and a giant cleaver in the other. 

It's legitimately terrifying.

“Oh right,” the man says when he sees him, “you exist”.

It's worth pointing out that the man looks almost exactly like Cloud himself, if aged and beefed up. For a second he thinks back to all the times he thought about his absent father showing up, if only so he could punch him in the face, and regrets all of those daydreams instantaneously.

Instead of asking where he's been, or even if he actually is related to Cloud in any way, the first thing he says is:

“Is he dead?” 

The dead body groans, and the man stares at Cloud with a blank look. 

“What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be in school or something?” The man asks. 

Cloud blinks. 

“It's summer.” 

Both of them take a look at the blinding snow and blistering wind all around them and exchange identical disgusted looks. 

“Want to get out of here?” The man asks, and Cloud can feel himself respond before the question even registers. 

“Gods yes.” 

— 

Here's a few things to note about Cloud Strife and his sudden and naive wish to leave town with a man holding a sword bigger than he is and who seems content lugging around a fully grown man in a cape. Firstly, Nibleheim fucking sucks as both a geographical place and a town full of closed minded people. Secondly, although it's obvious that they are related somehow, his mother’s reaction to the man disputes any evidence to him being Cloud’s father, which is a plus. 

Thirdly, Cloud at this point only has minor daydreams of joining soldier and becoming a hero; more than anything he just wants more than what a backwater village with only one heated bath can give him. 

So of course he leaves town. His mom doesn't even try to stop him, although she makes them wait a few weeks so that at least they’re stocked properly for the trip. Sky Strife is nothing but practical.

Meanwhile, the man in the cape turns out to be a Turk called Vincent or something, and despite the cool ass looking autopsy scars turns out not to be dead after all. He's quiet, even more so than Cloud’s new guardian, but also seems to think that the Strife family weirdness will end if he just ignores it enough. Cloud could tell him all about how that doesn't work, but figures he'll let the guy have his delusions for a while longer. 

Man with a cleaver gets renamed to Sun Strife (without his permission, since Cloud’s mom took one look at him and said “well don't you look like a sunny one”) and whatever he was called before is never asked. Them Strifes are good like that.

“Well you're definitively one of Thunder’s” Sky says while tugging at some of Sun’s golden hair, “you have the colouring for it, not to mention that man could sire twelve children in a year and not know it.” 

Both Cloud and Sun frown at that. Cloud didn’t even know they had any relatives out there, but then again, whoever Thunder is doesn’t sound like someone he wants to know anyways. As the town can agree, two (now three) Strifes are more than enough.

A few days later, Sky bullies Vincent into teaching Cloud how to shoot. She makes him his own scrap heap riffle, and stands there staring at the man until he takes both the gun and Cloud and wanders out back into the forest. Many a monster are sacrificed in the attempt, and while Cloud wouldn’t call himself anything close to good, it seems to be enough to satisfy his mom. 

“I really should have thought of this sooner,” she says when they come back, “you’re getting to the age where you’ll be joining on the hunts.” 

Vincent stares at her, looks down at Cloud, and the swings his gaze back up. 

“He’s nine.” 

Cloud’s mom nods, looking amused. 

“Well how else do you think we survive up here with Nibel Wolves and Dragons? We need every hand we can get.” 

Not necessarily something the whole village stands behind, but the Strifes live on the fringes of the town, close enough to the forest that at night the howls of the wolves sound like they're coming from right under the window sills. 

Vincent just shakes his head and walks away to shadow Sun creepily as the man buys their gear. Cloud watches him leave and then goes back to packing. 

— 

A few days after that Vincent gets his first real look at a real Nibel Wolf when Cloud’s mom comes home with a dead adult slung over one shoulder, dragging behind her, and an armful of squirming wolf pups. Cloud can just feel his heart jolt at the sight of them.

“What,” Vincent says somewhat blankly, staring at her. 

“Got caught up in a territory dispute, looks like. Found the mother a couple miles away from her den, figured I'd bring her back to make a few jackets for you guys.” 

Sky drops the wolf outside the house and pauses to catch her breath. A full adult Nibel wolf is about the size of pony, so it's pretty impressive she was able to get it down the mountain at all.

“And the pups?” Vincent asks slowly. 

Sky drops said animals into Cloud’s arms and smiles at him. From inside the house Sun peaks out the door and grins at the sight.

“It's only the adults that are a problem, probably because of the reactor so close by they end up with increased aggression and stuff. If you can find one young enough and keep it from Mako you're pretty much guaranteed the biggest guard dog you'll ever find,” he says, sauntering out to pick up one of the whimpering bundles. 

“ ‘Course they're not tame, in any sort of fashion, but they do develop strong bonds when they're young and are smart enough to learn some commands,” he continues, laughing a little under his breath as the pup in his arms goes to bite his fingers.

“They're about a month old, I’d think. You'll have to keep a close eye on them, take real care with them,” Sky adds. 

Vincent counts the balls of dark fur. There's three that he can make out, and despite being only a month old they're threatening to escape Cloud’s arms, the ends of their back paws wiggling about by his knees. 

“Right,” he says with a sigh, “I'll add raw meat to the list.”

—

None of the village see them off, and besides one last dire warning directed to Sun about taking care of Cloud and keeping in contact, there's no goodbyes.

Sun and Sky have been able to repurpose an old truck so they don't have to walk all the way, but it's in bad shape even after the repairs and the look both of them give it makes it clear it's a very temporary measure. 

There's only two seats, but luckily Vincent claims the back and sets himself up with his guns as lookout, the wolves a warm and excitable company at his side. What exactly they’re looking out for Cloud isn't quite sure, but the man seems happy enough to sit on the old mattress they sling in the back and keep an eye on their bags. 

As the dust from the wheels kicks up and Cloud can see the town grow smaller and smaller, it hits for the first time just what he's getting into. No more sneering neighbours and seven foot tall snow drifts, sure, but also no more afternoon fireside stories with his mom, no more skipping school to stay at her side in the old mechanic’s garage. 

Instead the road stretches out far, and at his side is a man who looks and talks a little like he does, but who doesn’t really know him. At his back is a man in a cape who thinks golden gauntlets are a good fashion choice, and they’re carrying three untrained Nibel Wolves. 

“It almost feels like a book,” he says while staring out the side window. Sun huffs a breath of laughter. 

“What? Leaving? Don’t worry kid, there’s more where that comes from.”


	3. The Boy Who Cried Rabbit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> IDEK about this one

When Tsuna is very young, he’s a target of bullies. He’s small, cute, and unable to stand up for himself. Boys who tease him walk away feeling strong; they barely have to do anything to make him cry. Tsuna’s left nursing bruises and tears, and those first few years are truly educational for him. Because tears work against adults: they panic and flail and do anything to make him stop. They smile at his pouting and let him get away with things others wouldn’t be able to.

His peers though find his wet eyes and shyness a weakness. Something to pick on. But he notices something strange in the way they go about it. 

When he cries, and it is always a when instead of an if, their aggression winds down, mostly without their own input. If there’s a group there’s always one who will push the others and tell them to stop as soon as the tears start: if it’s just one person they look confused, and then panicked, and then they say some more mean stuff before running away. 

He might be called a crybaby, but they don’t dare touch him. As if his sorrow will rub against them and infect them with the way he shakes and gasps. 

The kids who go farther, who like it when he cries and try to get him to, who don’t care about his pain at all, well, as he grows older and still stays small, and cute, they eventually find themselves pitted against a very strong deterrent:

Girls faced by a cute thing in danger.

Like a kitten being kicked by kids in an alley he finds himself a group of saviors both susceptible to his perceived vulnerability and willing to fight for it. It almost starts a full scale playground war: dragging in those from the upper years and, eventually, the teachers themselves. As the years go by, it only gets worse, and sometimes when he finds himself being tugged into a circle of protective girls with bright beads on their wrists and bloodthirsty smiles, he thinks it could almost be called a superpower. 

Because Tsuna is small, cute, and he’s able to use that to his advantage in ways most people just can’t understand. For every bully unable to resist his wet eyes are five others who like the feeling of protecting him. In both cases they want to feel strong because of his weakness: in both cases it’s the way he cries that instigates it. Sometimes it’s even his old antagonists who steps up to the plate, who refuses to let anyone else hurt this small bird they cup protectively between their hands. 

Whether it’s guilt, or just a natural progression from pulling pigtails for attention to more positive modes of interaction, Tsuna doesn’t know and mostly doesn’t care. He benefits though, he benefits quite a lot. 

And this power of his only grows stronger. Soon only those not exposed are able to resist: transfer students are immune for a few weeks before peer pressure and natural instincts take over. It’s strange, and completely against most child psychology texts out there. 

But then again, Tsuna has never been normal either. 

—

The child has large, wet eyes, and large, fluffy hair. Both the eyes and hair are the colour of burnished wheat. There’s small trinkets tucked carefully in the strands: beads and bows and ribbon twisted delicately into braids. It’s eyes are framed by long lashes that quiver slightly as it stares up at him. 

Hibari frowns and catalogues the rest, Tonfa lowering just slightly. There’s dirt on it’s knees, consistent with being pushed to the ground, and off in the distance he can see an older girl holding a boy by the back of his shirt and shaking him. Determining that his presence is no longer needed if the Herbivores are policing their own, he holsters his weapon. 

The child takes a gulping breath and smiles a little shyly up at him. Hibari makes note of the fluttery feeling in his chest and glares down at it. 

“...Be more careful next time, little bird.” 

—

By the time Tsuna is ten he’s amassed a group of friends ranging from young to old. In particular there's a group of older girls who love doing his hair and helping him with homework: he's invited to parties and day trips and although it's no longer needed as much some of them still walk him home. 

In his own grade there's a few too; Sasagawa Kyoko being the most influential even if her best friend Hana seems less enthralled by Tsuna’s general everything. Of the boys he’s a little less involved with, but that's mostly because his class in particular is really into sports (no doubt in part to Yamamoto Takeshi and his baseball arm), but there’s a few in the literature club that he enjoys talking with. 

And then there’s Hibari and his gang, which although no one can find any evidence of, Hana says is totally wrapped around Tsuna’s finger. Since he gets away with wearing the hair decorations the girls adorn him with Tsuna’s inclined to agree, and has a theory that the only reason Hibari isn’t immune to Tsuna’s effect is that he’s already weak to animals. Tsuna’s definitively seen him pet a stray cat before. 

Even Hibari’s second; Kusakabe Tetsuya, seems weirded out by the way Hibari becomes almost non-aggressive when faced with Tsuna’s pout. It’s almost un-noticeable, if you weren’t Tsuna (or Hana), and so no one really talks about it. Hibari still goes about doing semi-illegal things and beating up students that disobey the rules, so it isn’t as if there’s a weakness there that people can use. 

“I’m just saying, it’s a little unnatural,” Hana says with a frown, watching the way Tsuna compares his nails to Kyoko’s. Both are brightly painted and sparkly. 

“I’m confident in my masculinity,” Tsuna says simply. 

“Not you, idiot, Hibari and his inability to chastise you. Or at least do it the way he normally does. I’m pretty sure he went to pet your head last time,” she complains, ignoring Kyoko’s giggles and Tsuna’s innocent look. 

“No one can prove that,” he says, eyes flickering back down to his hands, a little smile at the corner of his lips. 

Hana can feel her own lips purse. Tsuna’s changed a lot from the weak willed little boy she remembers: this is a kid who’s been spoiled rotten by his looks. It’s a good thing that she’s not as susceptible to whatever weird powers of enthrallment he has. 

“I think it’s cute!” Kyoko chirps, finally deeming both her and Tsuna’s hands done drying. 

“Of course you would,” Hana mutters, burying her nose in her math booklet, used to Kyoko’s love of everything sugary sweet, even boys. 

“If we want to talk weirdness, let’s talk about this new teacher’s love of math problems involving fish. I’m not sure how long this one will last,” Tsuna says, eyes flickering to his own unopened booklet. 

For some reason, ever after the original teacher left amid scandal and rumours, their class's ability to retain a math teacher for more than a few months is non-existent. It’s a real curse, and one that only affects the class Tsuna ends up in. 

(Strangely, that’s also the class Kyoko and Hana end up in every year, too.)


	4. Of Rebirth and other Tricks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Myth!Loki in the MCU

Loki wakes on a skift of sodden ash, drifting peacefully at the edge of a calm river. The funeral pyre is still burning slightly at the edges, and he absently pats the embers down while he takes account of his surroundings. 

How far the funeral boat drifted before stopping is impossible to tell; the waters of Asgard flow into many a great beyond and realms. This could yet be Helheim, although it smells and feels too green to truly be the land of the dead. 

Insects buzz around in the air, and he can feel the cool calm of the water being disturbed by the passing strokes of fish. The abundance of life feels restful, despite the way he can feel the eyes of predators in the darkness of the canopy. 

It’s too hot for his death garb, so he sheds the first layer like the snake his kin sometimes call him, leaving his body only slightly cooler in a tunic of deep red. He unwraps his legs and loosens the ties at the sides of his leggings. With a look at how far the bank is from the slowly-sinking boat, he sighs and toes off his boots. 

Much lighter, and significantly cooler, he wades into the murky water and ignores the feeling of small hands grasping at his legs. Whatever manner of creature awaits in the deep, on land or on sea, he is Loki and he is a god. Even now he hears the cries of his people, those who travel far, and those who hide in the darkness. Those clever and those quick. 

Unlike his fellow gods, who one day will fade from memory and die, he is not restricted to prayers of pious men. What care does he have as to who will sacrifice a goat in his name? His wealth comes in forms much richer than a few paltry offerings. 

Perhaps that is why, even after the funeral pyre has been lit and the serpent poison gathered, after the wars and the cycles made anew, it is only Loki that remembers. That feels the ash of rebirth on his skin and can taste the honey of time on his tongue. 

Ragnarok comes and goes, and Loki survives. Time and time again. He is everlasting, and it is a good trick, a clever trick. The one god that no one wishes at their table is the one who will live long after the others wink out of the sky. It is truly a joke worth songs sung about it. A trick that he would be proud of, if only it were his. 

He steps onto the bank and dries his clothing with a muttered word. The mud between his feet feels different from what he is used to, but everything feels new when you wake from the fires of the dead. He touches one vibrant green leaf reaching out to him and smiles a little at the thought. Everything is new, even Loki. 

The walk through the dense foliage tells Loki nothing of where he is. Few realms have had the sort of fauna and flora he sees here: the abundance of it if anything is breathtaking. And the heat threatens to drag him down, become one with the wet earth, if it weren’t for the ice he breathes and leaves in his wake. 

Whatever world he has drifted upon, whether one of the Vanir or farther afield, he thinks he could come to enjoy it. It feels so unlike the Asgard he remembers, so unlike Jötunheim, so unlike Helheim. And perhaps, he thinks wryly, that is enough to love a place. 

Far away from the dull headed plots of his peers, he wonders, exactly, what sort of mischief he might dig up here.


	5. The Cost of Luck and other Misfortunes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tsuna doesn't need to be good at things if he's just really lucky

When Tsuna is five, a group of men try to take him from the front of the school while he waits for his mother to pick him up. She’s late, and it’s only Tsuna and the old groundskeeper; half asleep and completely oblivious to the squeal of tires that roars through the neighbourhood. 

They’re all dressed in black, with mean looks on their faces, and they’re not nice at all as they try to bully him into the black van with smoking wheels. 

The warmth in his chest burst for a second into an inferno; some sort of insulted anger that he can almost taste in his mouth. The look he sends the men could maybe be considered a chastisement, but with his wide eyes and fluffy hair it ends up more in the realm of adorable pouting. 

Luckily, for Tsuna’s safety and the kidnapper’s mental well being, four police cruisers show up out of the blue, furious and yelling about warrants. In the confusion of the ensuing fight, Tsuna walks home alone. 

If he notices the two men who conveniently get sidetracked following him (one from colliding with a construction worker’s two by four, and the other by accidentally falling into a previously sealed manhole), well, he can chalk it up to bad luck on their part. 

It’s only once he’s home and in the relatively safe bounds of his house that the fire in his chest recedes back into the lazy kindling he’s used to. His mother exclaims over his independence, apologizes for being caught up with a sale at the market, and life goes back to normal. 

Mostly. 

—

The Sawada’s are a lucky household. Nana is blessed by every random chance draw she walks by: they get years worth of items from stores and restaurants and promotional businesses. She is constantly getting all expenses paid vacations from contests that she never remembers entering. When New Year’s comes around, their fortunes are always cheerful and encouraging. They find forgotten money on the streets, stashed in gym lockers and under park benches. 

Tsuna is not well liked by his classmates, but he is not bullied either. Mostly because anyone who tries gets into some sort of accident, or falls sick, or has to move away. There’s some whispers about it, but he’s just too harmless looking to be branded the name of cursed. 

He’s just lucky, of course. 

The best seat placements, always at the right spot at the right time in gym, always guessing the right answer in multiple choice quizzes. 

And of course, always able to escape from the various men dressed in black who appear around town, loiter for a bit, and then mysteriously either end in police custody or bedridden in the hospital. Once, memorably, he was even able to witness the car that had been following him hit every red light on the way to his house, get frustrated and try and speed into the following lane, only to hit a sleek grey sports car that ended up belonging to Hibari senior. 

They might have been able to get out of that one, but then his wife showed up. Tsuna still winces when he thinks about it, but although he doesn’t necessarily like seeing all these men get into so much trouble, he can’t help the feeling in his chest that feels satisfied afterwards. 

Like he’s somehow responsible for the others’ misfortune. 

Like he’s somehow done something to make all these mean men with their black suits and cold eyes and tattooed fingers trip on nothing and bump into Yakuza bosses and get stuck in bad traffic and end up in every bad part of town possible. Like he’s somehow controlling the police patrols and random pianos falling and the time someone accidentally pulled the fire alarm at the department store and fifteen men in Gucci were left standing on the street while the fire department cleared everything. 

But that’s just ridiculous. 

—

Tsuna doesn’t like fighting. It’s scary and makes him feel bad; he doesn’t like seeing others hurt any more than he likes hurting. When he was younger (and before Iemitsu is barred from visiting Japan ever again through a series of unfortunate events) his father would say that he needed to man up, to fight his bullies head to head. To be strong. 

Tsuna doesn’t want to be strong. 

It’s lucky that he doesn’t have to be. 

—

“That wasn’t very nice of you,” Tsuna says, hands on his hips and a pout on his lips. The man coughing on the ground doesn’t answer, too busy trying to suck in air, but the one stumbling out the back door of the restaurant they're behind does. 

“We’re not supposed to be nice, you idiot,” he snarls out, hands reached out to try and grab Tsuna. 

He doesn’t get very far though, since a nearby alley cat goes screaching by and trips him up. The man stumbles, trying to get his balance against the brick wall, and mostly failing. He’s swaying like he’s drunk, and the green tinge to his face makes it look like he’s one strong wind away from passing out. 

“What is in that gas?” asks the man lying on the floor, finally caught his breath. He’s not moving, arms starfished out and eyes staring straight up into the sky. He’s getting his suit all messy in the dirty water of the alley. 

“How should I fucking know? It was supposed to knock him out not blow back into our faces!” the other man snarls, before abruptly gagging and sliding another inch down the wall.


	6. The Weaving of Fate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Girl can reject reality itself, how come she's never the one who goes back in time?

The world is such a strange place, Orihime thinks languidly, watching her younger self and Tatsuki walk to school. She's stretched out on a nearby roof, enjoying the feeling of the sun on her back and the slight breeze in her hair.

Karakura feels as it ever did, living and breathing Reishi and bursting with colour. It feels alive in a way she hasn't felt in a while. It feels vibrant, a burst of flavour after months of nothing but ash. 

For that alone she would be tempted to interfere with things, despite the feeling that still lives in her gut that she's not meant to. Ichigo should be the one perched above the old school yard like a saviour coming home. Orihime has always been the sidekick to his adventures, or worse, his damsel. Ichigo is touched by fate in a way she never will be. 

But Ichigo is dead. Has been for years, and her husband wouldn't have let something as silly as a lack of destiny keep him from doing what he thought was right, so neither will she. 

But despite all the power she holds in her fingers, the ability to reject even time itself, she is not meant to change the world. She is not her husband, nor any of the many enemies they faced in their times as teenagers. She is not Aizen, puppet master behind the strings and whose ego was the only thing larger than his brain. She is not Yhwach, power hungry in a way a black hole hungers for light. She is not Shinigami, or Quincy, or Hollow Hybrid of any kind. 

She is, even after years and years of watching the world move on without her, human.

But maybe that's all she needs to be. After all, it's not like the future was any safer in the hands of those whose power came in the form of swords and bows and claws. It did not last under the eye of those whose only morals came in the form of tradition, or bitterness, or greed. It did not live.

She breaths in the air, the pollution from the city and the scent of a nearby restaurant, fried meat and pungent spices, tastes the bustle in a way she was never able to when she was younger and didn't know what the lack felt like. There are not just ghosts here, she thinks with a smile. 

What a time to be alive.

—

She spends a few days wandering her old hometown. She has time, having stepped back into an era where the only danger is missing marks in school. She visits each of her old friends one by one, peeping into familiar scenes of laughter and following them diligently as they go about their mundane lives. 

She needs to reacquaint herself with the people that mean the most to her; years without them has left her with incomplete memories. Everything feels a little off centre. 

It’s not a bad thing, despite how uncomfortable it feels to be watching her life play out as if she’s not part of it. Perhaps who she was years ago would feel the pain more, but age has given her foresight. 

She’s been watching her old friends for a few weeks before she actually sets about the first stage of her plan. It's mundane, maybe, but she needs somewhere to sleep if she wants to pass as human. Somewhere that's not a reishi generated tent in the middle of the forest. 

And renting means having money, an identity, a history. 

Luckily, there's not a lot her powers can't do with the right amount of creativity. 

—

Her landlord is a sleaze. He takes one look at her chest and doesn’t even pay any attention to the fake money she hands him. She finds herself a little bemused, pushing over fifty and not having aged a day over thirty. She’s too old for him. 

It makes things simple though, so she ignores the stares with long practice. How odd that her husband was one of the few men out there who didn’t pay more attention to her body than her mind. She married him for it, and even years later she’s not sure if he ever noticed. Ichigo could be quite naive about certain things. 

The apartment itself is dingy but serviceable, not all that different from her old one back when she was paying her way in life with high grades. It’s got a strange stain in the bedroom that she covers with some flowery posters, and the taps stick something fierce. She could fix it of course, simply reject the years of neglect and use, but these days she finds small uses of her powers like that boring. Besides, it’s not as if she’s planning on spending a lot of time there. 

Her next step is a little more tricky. She has to use her powers to make it believable: the records and history she has no other way of faking. And then she needs to find just the perfect spot: not too close as to be suspicious, but close enough so that she can be in the thick of things. The area is not the greatest for new businesses: a mostly industrial district with only a few shops peppered throughout. The buildings come cheap though, since most of them are in need of repair. She finds a decent prospect a few blocks from the Urahara Shōten, and close enough to the main street that she’ll get more customers than the few errant shinigami that Urahara had to deal with. 

It takes weeks of work, of dealing with forms and inventory and business listings. Of decorating and buying yards and yards of silk. 

A month after she lands in the past she opens shop. Orihime no Ito’s bright fabric and colourful patterns attracts little notice at first, besides a few older women who exclaim over the beautifully crafted Kimono in the window sill. But she’s not there to be noticed, and she needs the time to settle in anyways. 

Magic can’t be faked, after all, and she has a lot of magic to make before the plot really picks up. 

—

Her first real customer is a girl with a butterfly clip in her hair and a terrorized look in her eyes. Orihime watches her run her hands through the soft fabric and hums in thought, cataloguing the way certain cloth reacts to the girl’s inquisitive touch.


	7. Shifting Sands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Star wars cultural AU

The sands of Tatooine hold many secrets. The wind sucks in sound until he can’t hear your own thoughts through the howl, and the constantly shifting ground swallows ideas as well as bodies. It’s not the sort of place peace has any right to dwell, and it certainly is not the sort of place one rests easy in.

Even the dead do not rest on Tatooine after all.

—

Anakin has heard all the stories by the time he’s five, or at least it feels like it. Most of the time it’s the same old—slaves beaten by masters, criminals shot on bad deals, thirst and starvation and exhaustion. Sometimes there’s something a little more interesting, like a fire fight or a shuttle crash or a pilgrim emptying out their canteen and their life onto the parched sands.

His mother tells him not pay too much attention to those last souls—raiding mythos that have twisted into some weird mix of sacrifice and suicide, but he can’t turn away from them like she can. They might be strange, and saddening, but they have stories all the same, and their stories should be told.

That’s what being a slave means, after all. Telling the stories of the ones who can’t. Keeping the fire lit, as it were, because there’s no one else to do it, and slaves know all about duty. There is a blessing that comes with being spirit-touched, and they all have it in some measure. Even as they waste away and languish in their chains, they have the stories.

—

The masters can’t see them. Some of the slaves can’t either, those who work off-planet or who are locked up inside and never see the heat roll across the dunes in the shape of hundreds of fluttering robes.

They still know they’re there, though. It’s hard not to, with the way the night moans their names and lives and deaths, echoing across the wastes and ringing through the hard packed homes of the ports and settlements. Even the Tuskans know of them.

The masters try and deny, do not give a tithe or sacrifice to the sands when their dues are called, do not wrap the japor snippets around their waists and wrists and necks, do not sing the songs of the fallen or learn the names of the grandmothers, do not sink into the desert night when they perish and remain ever eternal under the twin suns. They’ve forgotten their origins.

But the slaves—oh, the slaves remember.

—

Mother Easla is a wizened crone with black eyes and teeth and the face of the desert itself—split and cracked in the heat. She hangs out by the edge of Mos Espa’s slave quarters, singing her songs and touching the face of the children as they line up to hear her story. She is looking for someone, she says, but decades have gone and she has never found whoever it’s supposed to be.

One day, she says, one day.

Anakin doesn’t really understand that sort of dedication and patience. But then again, he supposes you have a lot of time to learn both when you’re dead.

“Skywalker,” she says one day. It is almost second dawn, and he’s crept under the awning of one of the ramshackled buildings in hopes of evading the glare of the coming suns. He’ll need to find his way back to Watto soon and start his shift at the shop, but for now he has no more pressing matters than the ever-constant thirst in his throat.

“Mother,” he replies. All the grandmothers are Mother, for reasons that are unknown to the young boy. Like many things about the desert, it simply is as it is.

“There is a storm coming,” she warns, sightless eyes looking through him.

Anakin squints at the horizon, where the haze of a sandstorm is just visible, and frowns. It is not quite the season yet for them, although that means little in such a capricious climate as Tatooine’s. Still, there’s something odd about one happening out of season and at such an hour. They usually happen when the heat is at its peak.

“Thank you,” he says instead of questioning her ability to pick up the signs of a storm without eyes. It always pays to be polite to the desert spirits after all, especially when they offer information for free.

“You need to go out to meet it,” she continues, and he pauses.

Well crud.

—

The spirits ask things of the living sometimes. It’s not the sort of thing that you would think to be asked either, like revenge or goodbyes or the settling of old regrets. The dead have no use for them, seeing as those things are things of the living.

They ask for more difficult things instead. Blood, freedom, knowledge. Some of those they ask things of disappear into the desert never to be seen again, not even as spirits themselves. Some of them become powerful in their own right—midwives and seers and keepers of the keys.

It’s impossible to know what kind Anakin is about to become. He thinks of his mother for a second as he stands on the edge of Mos Espa and the desert. He hopes, for her sake if anything, that it’s the latter.

There’s a few eyes watching him as he hesitates on the boundary. No one tries to stop him though, and the people here are used to the sight no doubt. He thinks he can hear the whispered song of the departed from one of the houses, and he raises a hand in that direction with his fingers in the shape of the sign of the living. He is not departed yet.

He can’t help but think he’d much rather be at the podraces right now. There’s supposed to be a big one this evening, and the city has been abuzz with activity all week. There’s no telling how long this will take.

The wind tugs at his synth-wool shirt and he takes a deep breath. He’s not scared—he doesn’t think he is, at least. He’s not some sort of baby anymore after all. The desert isn’t going to swallow him whole if he steps out into it, not like the stories some of the older kids jeer at night about. He straightens his spine as much as it can be, raising his height to its full hundred and twenty centimeters. He knows the bomb at his side will not detonate with the song of the desert so loud, but he cannot help the instinctual worry that this time it will fail, and he’ll be like that runaway he saw the first day he arrived on the planet.

But the desert does not fail. It might turn away from aiding you, it might be uncaring and unforgiving, but if it wants you, not even the technology of the masters can hold it back.

He steps out into the desert.

—

Once upon a time there was a woman with a starfire smile, fierce and blinding to look at. She lived in the space between a smuggler’s ship’s belly, and the hands of grasping slavers. She woke one night, feverish and dreaming of two suns and a desert rolling like waves, and quickly grew round with child.

She did not lie when she told people there was no father. The only father Anakin will ever have is the desert itself. It is both a blessing and a curse, this changeling she was entrusted with, but her love is as fierce as that starfire smile, and she regrets nothing of how he came to be.

They might live now in poverty and chains and drudgery, but her child has her eyes and her spirit and he is all that she needs in life. The desert chose her wisely.

—

Anakin walks. And walks. At some point the sound of the city dies down, and the desert overcomes all he can see and hear and smell and taste. His feet burn on the sand, and his back starts to sweat.

He needs water more than he’s maybe needed anything in all his life. More than he’s needed the feeling of a pod under his hands.

 _Son of the Sky,_ the wind whispers into his ear. He can’t hear anything else over the roaring of the storm.

 _Son of the Sky, come find us_ , the wind whispers. Hands tug at his legs and shades inch into the corner of his eyes. There’s the shape of something enormous and living in the gritty haze of the storm.

He follows the pull further into the desert.

—

The strangers come to Mos Espa when Anakin is nine. He knows because all the ghosts on the block are restless at their sight, and the stories spread. Just who they are is a mystery that the spirits are keeping tight lipped about, but there’s something almost joyful at their presence. Or to be more accurate, at what their presence means.

“You will meet with them,” Mother Agnis says, tugging Anakin’s tunic so that it is free of dust. She ties a bone-white japor snippet into its folds, the symbol for truth and new journeys carved into its faces.

At his side Shmi frowns, but she is distracted by her own spirit minder who is braiding her hair in the traditional knots of strength and courage. Anakin doesn’t get to see his mother looking so put together very often—neither of them are priests or truth-sayers, they do not guide the rituals in the dark of night, and so need no decoration besides the everyday. It makes her look younger, less burdened. He can imagine her in some position of power—like granny Nadeen, who is not a Mother yet, but is getting close.

“They will buy your freedom—or a facsimile of it, at least,” Mother Agnis continues, “you must go with them.”

Anakin almost argues—he doesn’t want to leave his mother, or his friends in the slave quarters, or the hundreds of spirits that still call his name from the depth of the desert. But there’s no arguing with the Mothers, and more than that, there’s no way to argue with his mother when she hears the word freedom.

They’re in the great hall, one of the few communal buildings the slaves are allowed, and curious eyes watch them closely as the others go to and fro, duties and errands pulling them away before too many questions can be asked. There’s a stir already buzzing, although he knows not all of it is because of them.

A master was killed last night. Not by his slaves, luckily, or they might be facing a purge right now. Not by a bad deal or a jealous business partner either. They’re saying a krayt dragon swooped down from the sky and ate him whole, which is rather ridiculous when you think about it because krayt’s don’t have wings. But something happened, and there’s a dead man and a dozen displaced slaves to account for. If a few of those go missing—well, the desert keeps its secrets.

“You’re as ready as you’ll ever be,” Mother Agnis says eventually, but a quick look at Shmi shows that she’ll probably be there for a bit longer.


	8. Legacies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> idk tbh

When Reborn tells Tsuna’s he’s going to be a Mafia boss—that he’s inherited the position through his no-good-father’s blood—Tsuna’s first reaction is to laugh. It’s pretty laughable, after all; small, useless Tsuna being anything but small, and useless.

Even when Reborn pulls out a gun, aimed dead centre between Tsuna’s eyes, he can’t stop laughing. There’s a moment where—laughter still strong and bordering on hysterical—he can see the pause as Reborn questions his sanity.

“Oh man—hah, Hibari’s going to love this,” Tsuna says, when he has the breath to pause. At Reborn’s continued nonplussed look, he just breaks down again.  
—

Tsuna meets Hibari when he’s six. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say that Tsuna meets Hibari’s mother when he’s six. She’s a tall woman in traditional clothing, a somewhat severe expression, and a force of presence so intense that Tsuna can’t looking at her directly for the first couple minutes of their meeting.

She walks into the Sawada residence like she owns the place, elegant and regal and all those other words that belong in fairy tales. She trails men in black suits and severe expressions, but they pay neither Tsuna nor his mother any mind. All their attention is rightfully on the silk clad empress in their midst, with her black eyes and straight black hair and white, white teeth. Her lips are very red.

What a rich woman with a fleet of bodyguards wants with a suburban mother and her young son are not readily apparent. Nana serves her tea and idle chatter, and seems to think nothing odd of her arrival. This does little to calm Tsuna’s nerves, who has seen her smile just as placidly at rabid dogs and raging children.

Nana does not seem to be aware that danger is a thing that exist. It’s almost as if she gave away all her fear and timidity to Tsuna when he was born.

She is not suspicious of this woman and her men, even when lady Hibari talks of potential she sees in Tsuna, companionship needed for her son, a mutually beneficial arrangement, a fostering of sorts. Tsuna doesn’t really understand any of it, but he does understand that they are talking about him and some sort of schooling. Tsuna doesn’t like school, and doesn’t like leaving his mother’s side. He’s not sure he likes this cold woman and her sharp eyes.

He cries. He cries and a week later his mother bundle’s him up and shuffles herself and him into a black car with tinted windows.

It will be some time before he sees his childhood home again.

—

They have an entire wing of the mansion to themselves, complete with their own fleet of black suited men and quiet servants. In the mornings Tsuna goes to school—which consists of being walked into another wing and sitting besides the lady’s son while tutors come and go and press information into his confused mind, and his mother’s has tea with the lady in her office. In the evenings, they go for walks, or Tsuna has additional studies, or the son shows up and drags him around by the hand.

The things he learns are strange—regular schooling with subjects like math and languages, and then the odder lessons. Etiquette, which he figures is understandable enough with just how rich their patrons are. Dancing, either of the traditional kind, or a mix of more modern kinds that seem to be design solely to stretch his body in more and more complicated knots. Self defense, although he doesn’t know that’s what it is at first, where his sensei gently pulls his limbs into katas. Music, complete with a room fully dedicated towards traditional instruments. Art, where a heavily tattooed woman in a yukata teaches him how to hold a variety of brushes and how to get ink stains out of clothing.

It would be a lot to take in for a child, easily turn a child towards rebellion or to act out. But Tsuna is a shy, timid boy, who before this never got enough attention from his teachers or peers. He is all too willing to do what these intimidating people with their kind smiles say.

The son—which all the men and servants calls Hibari-sama, despite being only seven and easily confused with Hibari-sama the elder—seems at first chillingly cold towards Tsuna, with disdain towards him everytime he cries or whimpers or clings too tightly to his mother. And yet, he is not _unkind_ , and it is obvious that he is just as confused as to the Sawada’s presence as Tsuna is himself. His mother calls him Kyoya-kun and tells Tsuna to do the same, but that seems like something likely to result in a lot of pain for Tsuna, so he compromises with Hibari-san.

His mother starts wearing yukata, styled similarly to Hibari-sama. They learn the names of the workers in the mansion—there’s Ishida-san and Haruki-san and Kaede-san and a full trio named Takeru. After a few months he goes back to school—actual school, not whatever weird tutoring is happening at the mansion. Hibari-san comes with him, glaring at their classmates and in short order ensuring no one even thinks of trying to bully him, never mind be his friend.

In that time Hibari-sama picks up another stray—a boy by the name of Kusakabe Tetsuya who looks nothing more like an alley cat as he dangles from her surprisingly strong grip—so in the end, Tsuna ends up with more companionship at school than ever before, even if their classmates pull away and refuse to look at him.

He knows his mother visits the house sometimes—to pick up mail, to answer his father’s monthly calls, to pick up some family heirloom—but he rarely has time to follow her. With school, Hibari-san seems determined to impose his will onto the students and teachers whether they want it or not, and that somehow translates into all three of them to stay late and getting into trouble. And he still has lessons every weekend at the mansion.

The days are busy, somewhat exhausting, and he burns through his fear through shear constant exposure. Years pass.

—

The Hibari’s are rich, that goes without saying. They employ a full household, even though the patriarch has been dead for years and there are no distant relatives close enough to enjoy their hospitality. They are also powerful. Money does that, of course, but they also happen to have reputation and lineage to back them up, not to mention connections and cunning.

And there is history in their name. Enough so that when the matriarch sees a golden child with leashed fire in his chest, she sees a rare potential squandered in obscurity. She cares not who placed the seal on the boy—what matters is that it will break, and when it does, he’ll have his gratitude to place at her family’s feet. The Hibari’s were rulers, once-upon-a-time, and they will be rulers again.

Of course, she is not the only one to think so. The first time Tsuna breaks through the seal—through judicial use of mental and physical training disguised as regular lessons—she sees the look in her son’s eye and knows he too feels the future unfolding. A child this strong will grow up to be an even stronger man, and there is nothing a Hibari loves more than strength.

She smiles a little to herself and orders a new dress for Sawada-san. It helps that she admits to a smidge of fondness for the two—Nana is bright and refreshing and easily swayed, but there is a rod of steel in her spine that is rarely seen. A delight, good company, and easy to love. Tsuna is much the same, although with the added charm of being small and cute and absolutely terrified of the dangers in his midst. They are perfect house guests, perfect wards, and she can see an alliance of their families to be nothing but beneficial.

Slightly chaotic, mayhap, if what the stars say turns to pass, but beneficial all the same.

—

The boys grow close. Kyouya being Kyouya, this involves perhaps a tad more bloodsport than regular friendships. At some point he’d developed a rather pointed animal metaphor obsession, and coupled with the Hibari sense of justice, soon was leading a pack of rabid wolves disguised as children. At his side of course were Tsuna and Tetsuya. She makes sure to equipe him and his gang with whatever they need, and intimidates the authorities to stay out of his way.

Tsuna grows into his skin, becoming more and more confident under the protection of the Hibari family, and starts taking part in the chaos himself. If she was a lesser parent—or had less people to delegate to, she would be run ragged. Luckily she has plenty of hands to keep things in check, and a few more besides to advance some of her own chaos.


	9. A family business

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> addams family crossover that I had plans for and then kinda fizzled out

The trouble really starts around a hundred and ten years ago, when Elizabeth Addams marries Hibari Ichiro in a lavish and loving ceremony that just happens to also be officiated by the resurrected corpse of an esteemed elder and the vows done with a blood pact. It’s not the most dangerous, or outrageous of Addams gatherings by far, but it is one of the few times there’s been a successful joining between the morbid-loving family and an outsider. 

Not that the Hibari family was much better to begin with, really. Once upon a time they were a rather prosperous clan of lords and ladies who dealt almost exclusively with the supernatural, but time and life has dwindled their numbers to down to only one. One whose oddities have only grown with proximity to his soon-to-be wife. 

The happy couple soon depart on a world tour of a honeymoon, evading arrest and causing havoc in their wake, and it is not too long before they bring a child into their life. 

And the rest is history. 

—

The Hibari branch isn’t quite as explosive, or dramatic, or overly concerned with unhappiness and misery as the Addams branch, but they love violence just as much if not more. They keep it relatively tame behind their proud and noble bearings, but at family gatherings they contribute the most to the Wild Hunts and the murder games. Elizabeth keeps in contact with her old family, of course, and imparts all the best and most important traditions onto her new family, but they are not quite the same. 

Similar, but different. Their own brand of beastly. 

Their children are perfect examples. Taught the stateliness of their father’s lineage, mixed with their mother’s brutality, they are all sharp points hidden behind silk trappings. Arsenic in the tea and cyanide dusted on supper like salt. Dissections and electrocution as play. And then traditional dance and calligraphy. Learning the flute and the shamisen and the piano. 

A true mixing of the arts. 

—

Hibari Sadako is twenty three for twelve years when she meets the love of her un-life. He’s charming, respectful, talented in bed, and extremely skilled with all sorts of weaponry. She encounters him beating up some foreigners who’d been causing trouble down by her favourite cemetery, and decides then and there that she must have him. There has never been anything that’s been able to refuse her before, and he is no different. The fact that he is a police officer who moonlights as a vigilante doesn’t deter her, even with her multiple warrants for arrest. 

He takes her name without much prompting, and she never really gets around to asking him what exactly he’s running from or why. 

If he really understands what he’s getting into by meeting her parents, it doesn’t show on his face, and he’s able to charm even cousin Alda, who is notorious for only liking grave robbing and corpse desecration. 

They have a sedate (for her family’s definition of the term) seven years before they tie the knot and have a child in the same week. By then Sadako is twenty-eight and mostly done with her previous youthful follies. 

Hibari Kyoya is born death-pale and silent, like all Hibaris before him, and it is not until they dip him in still-warm blood for his first bath does he make a sound. It is more growl than scream, but that is only a omen of the coming storm. 

They move to his father’s birth town—a strong and overpowering nesting instinct overcoming the new parents. Sadako takes up motherhood with the same negligence her own mother afforded her, and young Kyoya is left in the hands of the family retainers and other playmates for most of his life. Not to say he is unloved, for his parents love him with a ferocity better suited to some predatory animal. But Hibaris don’t much care for safety, or supervision, or child-proofing their many dangerous and deadly hobbies. 

He grows up surrounded by literal vipers, headless dolls and razor-sharp guillotines, corpse-raising and corpse-killing. He develops his own quirks right off the bat—a certain predisposition towards animal analogies, an over-strong sense of justice and peace, and the absolute incapability to understand regular human interactions. 

In hindsight, he’s actually one of the tame ones. Don’t even get his parents started on their cousins in America. 

—

Hibari Kyoya would have had no interest in Sawada Tsunayoshi if it weren’t for one fact: on their first meeting Tsuna trips, runs headfirst into a pole, somehow evades the grasping hands of the black-clad, suspicious men who have been following him for four blocks, and then bursts into tears and into flames. In that order. 

Now, Kyoya isn’t a pyromaniac—his cousin Tamaki ruined whatever desire he’d might have for that destructive urge by showing up to his fifth birthday party still smelling of grilled meat and missing more than a few limbs—but he can appreciate fire like any other Hibari. Especially a fire as interesting as this. But even that might be ignorable—something of note but not necessarily something of note, if it weren’t for the fact that Kyoya’s mother is with him at the time and witnesses it all too. As a mother, part of her attention is on the men, but there’s also a part of her absolutely delighted in finding someone outside of the family who’s already fireproof. 

The mafia men are disposed of, Tsuna is picked up, dusted off and swept summarily into her arms, and Kyoya himself feels his interesting piquing at her own. She wouldn’t bother with him if she didn’t see some sort of potential in him, after all, and so there must be something to this blubbering mess of hair and eyes. Something besides his relative cuteness, because his mother doesn’t have his worrisome weakness for such things.


	10. Of hospitality, and other unhealthy habits

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> i still love this and will write more....later

The world has forgotten just where Hobbits come from—more the pity for them.

Maybe if they did, things like this wouldn’t happen.

—

Bilbo Baggins is the perfect gentlehobbit—with just a hint of Took-ishness that rarely shows itself. He’s polite, and intelligent, and he always gives the best gifts on his birthday. He comes from a long line of well-to-do and respectable Hobbits, from his father and his large smial to his mother and her direct line to the Thain.

But there’s also something a little more to him, that has relatives and neighbours shaking their head and sighing. A little too much of his Took blood mixing a little too well with the Baggin’s heritage—something a little old, a little strange, a little hungry.

They shake their heads and sigh, but in the comfort of their warm smials and in the shade of their hats and hands, they _smile_.

Some traditions are meant to die—but some are meant to hide in fertile soil until such a time that they can burst out of the ground, vibrant and healthy and impossible to unroot.

—

When Bilbo is still a young hobbit—not quite hit his majority—his parents die in a winter that lasts two years. Or at least, that’s the polite fiction that the Shire weeps over, funeral garb immaculate. Two empty caskets get lowered into the ground, planted under the bows of the oaks guarding the entrance to the old forest, and Bilbo is left to tend to a suddenly empty smial.

Perhaps he’ll receive letters, or small trinkets delivered by confused rangers and bounders, but he doubts it. Neither of his parents tended towards recklessness, even though Belladonna tried. They would not risk the Shire and its peaceful life unless things were extremely dire. Especially not now that the hunger has taken them.

Part of him mourns them, of course, and part of him rages at the Fell Winter for taking his parents away.

But there’s a greater part of him that longs for the cold to return, that remembers the ice and wind and howling forest with great nostalgia.

Those were two years of great feasting, after all.

—

 

Hobbits make things grow. From the lowliest farmer to the most decorated gentlehobbit, they all know the best ways to till the earth and coax greenery to follow their careful hands.

This wasn’t always the case, however, just like they weren’t always so—hospitable. They did not always care about politeness, and civility, and the proper way to polish silver. They did not always dance under ribbons of silk and sit quietly under the shade with a pipe and a book, and they did not always have great parties where gossip and laughter and merriment rang out louder than any war cry.

But then again, they did not always live in a green and fertile land surrounded by Rangers with blessed silver and under the oath of a long dead king.

And the world has changed. The things they used to be and do are no longer viable. It is better to cover the grime with brocade and tea and dainty hat pins that in no way resemble the weapons of their youth. Better to be underestimated and thought weak, instead of as a threat. Better to live in peace and in greenery than to slip down that slope of blood again.

The one thing that hasn’t changed from the times of their forefathers however, is their appetite.

Breakfast, second breakfast, lunch, tea, supper, second tea…

Food was the one thing that all Hobbits had in common. Their stout bodies hid an alarming metabolism that required constant fuel. They were great gardeners, this is true, but they are also great cooks. Parties were often an excuse to get together and have lavish communal feasts, with rich food and refreshing drink.

It made them seem decadent to men and elf alike—almost gluttonous, but the truth remained. Hobbits were a hungry lot.


End file.
